Abi’s eyes widened as she looked at Alex, utterly shocked again.
“W-what did he say? This was y-your plan?” Abi stuttered, as her tears silently fell. “Tell me, Alex… please tell me it’s not true…”
Alex finally averted his eyes. He looked down, hiding his eyes from her as he spoke. There was no more reason to hide his secrets. If he knew that Abi would come to know all his secrets in the worst possible way, he would’ve told her all of it on that day she cried for him in the rain. But there was no use in looking back. The past couldn’t be changed, not even by him.
“He’s right.” Alex started. “The first time I saw you, I felt something I didn’t understand. I didn’t look into it any further. I put it down to momentary surprise because I was surprised by you, that first time we met. But again, the moment was fleeting. After I left, I never thought I would see you again so I didn’t think anymore of it.” Alex looked at her at this point and said, “If you had only listened to me then… but you didn’t. You came to me, you threw yourself at me and that strange feeling returned. It was then that I delved deeper into what this was and why. The first few days with you, I noticed that you were able to move me, sway my decisions despite centuries of callousness and coldness, and that made me wonder if I had finally found the person I’ve been searching for, for so long.
Xavier is right. This was my plan, the same plan I had since I learned of the witch’s words. It didn’t change when I met you. I’ve longed for death for so long and if my hunch was right, I would finally be able to breathe my last breath, to finally be free. How could I let that chance go, to let it slip between my fingers? I have lived for so long that I had forgotten what life was, what it meant to live. So if you were my only chance to end this hollow, cursed life, then I would take it. If I let you go now, I would live forever because this chance will never come again. That’s why I planned all this. To bring you here in this room one day and hypnotize you before forcing you to kill me with this dagger. After my death, you would forget everything to do with me. You would forget it all and be able to live your life again in unknowing bliss. That was my plan, Abigail…” Alex trailed off.
Abi’s body began to tremble with all these emotions, mercilessly crashing like raging waves on her. She wanted to feel no more, to escape this. She didn’t know what to say, or think, or do. But Alex wasn’t finished.
“I wasn’t sure if you were the one, so I had my people investigate. However, in the few days I had spent with you, you turned my life inside out. You were so innocent, so good, an unexpected breath of fresh air, filling my lungs with oxygen, with life again. I looked at you and it made me think. My decision had never wavered before until you. I thought it was solid, unshakeable, unbreakable, but you poked a hole through it, unknowingly. I looked at you and I started to doubt myself. You were so pure that I didn’t want to dirty your hands with my blood. The mere thought of it makes me… You have this unnerving effect on me, this hold on me, that I couldn’t break. And then I started to hope…”
“Because you fell in love with me…?” Abi forced herself to speak.
Alex took a sharp painful breath. “Yes. Because I fell in love with you.” He smiled. And it was the most bitter smile she had ever seen. The smoke from the incense began to fill the room, slowly. It seemed that Xavier had lit them up. The scent was hypnotic and Abi remembered the smoke from her nightmares. She finally realized where she had seen that incense pot before. She saw it in her nightmares.
“Since you came into my life, everything changed.” Alex continued. “Before I knew it, my hollow heart, the void within me started to be filled. The world of nothing that I’ve been encased in for so long began to overflow. You were like a fearless diver. Even though you saw how deep and dark the water was, you dove into it, not afraid of drowning, persistently reaching the bottom where my heart was hidden and bravely brought it into the surface. You showed it all to me. You cracked all my frozen bones and opened my eyes. I couldn’t believe that finding you… that falling in love with you… would make up for all the long sufferings, for all the times I asked a stranger to slaughter me, for all of the times I tried to break myself into pieces. I have longed for death for too long, have been so desperate to meet it, but now that I’ve found it…” he trailed off and smiled again. “I don’t want to die anymore.”
Alex looked up at her and Abi saw the raw, bleeding pain in his eyes. The kind of pain that was far worse than hers. It came from a lifetime of suffering and torment that he had experienced. She remembered those moments when Alex was just sitting there, silently and looking far off into the distance. She thought back then that he looked like a child who needed soothing, like a child who was left alone in this world, wandering about aimlessly, a child who had felt nothing but pain. Now that she experienced the worst pain she ever felt in her life, she began to understand why, to him, death was mercy. He must have been so tired of feeling nothing but that…
Abi could only cry again because she could see it – how Alex was just one more blow away from breaking.
She wished she could hug him. She wished she could have shown more of her love to him.
“Then… don’t die. Stay with me. My love for you… even if you’re the devil, I will not leave you. I will love you forever, Alex.” Abi was becoming desperate. She had to step up right now or she would lose him forever. She needed to demonstrate her love for him now or she would regret it forever. “I would die for you, suffer for you, and ultimately, live for you, Alex. I will walk with you through the gates of hell and feel the same torture I know you bore. Just don’t leave me alone,” she begged. “Don’t leave me.”
Alex moved and kissed her tears and then her forehead.
“Don’t worry… after this, everything will be alright. Once I’m gone, you will be set free. You will no longer be hellbound with me. I’m so sorry for hurting you. I thought I could protect you but it seemed I was wrong. I always ended up hurting you, putting you in danger… all I can give you is hell and nothing more.”
“No! No! Alex! Please! Xavier stop this!” Abi screamed as Alex lifted her hands towards his chest.
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